Global precipitation

This report was originally released in December 2004 in prepublication form
as the first report of a two-phase study to be carried out by the same committee.
The first phase was sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) and focused on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
(TRMM). The second phase was sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and focused on the Global Precipitation Measurement
mission. The report of the second phase will be published in a separate volume
in 2006.

The failure of the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen in December 2009 to effectively reach a global agreement on emission reduction targets, led many within the developing world to view this as a reversal of the Kyoto Protocol and an attempt by the developed nations to shirk out of their responsibility for climate change.

In smaller regions such as the Carpathian Basin (located in Eastern/Central Europe), 50 km
horizontal resolution may still not be appropriate to describe the meso-scale processes (e.g.,
cloud formation and convective precipitation). For this purpose on a national level several
RCMs have been adapted with finer resolution (25 and 10 km). Here, results from two of the
adapted RCMs for Hungary are analyzed, namely, models PRECIS and RegCM.
In this paper, first, data and models from PRUDENCE, PRECIS and RegCM are presented.

Impoverishing the local resource base can impoverish wider areas: deforestation by
highland farmers causes flooding on lowland farms; factory pollution robs local fishermen of
their catch. Such grim local cycles now operate nationally and regionally. Dryland degradation
sends environmental refugees in their millions across national borders. Deforestation in Latin
America and Asia is causing more floods, and more destructive floods, in downhill,
downstream nations. Acid precipitation and nuclear fallout have spread across the borders of
Europe.

When planning how to reduce the threat of global warming and how to adapt to it, a
very important piece of information is how intense the change will be. That implies
estimating the trends of future concentrations of greenhouse gasses, and the potential
future changes in temperature, precipitation, storm events and other climatic
variables. These predictions are important not only to estimate the magnitude of the
changes, but also to determine the uncertainty surrounding them.

Climate change is a long-term shift in the statistics of the weather (including its
averages). For example, it could show up as a change in climate normalcy (expected
average values for temperature and precipitation) for a given place and time of year,
from one decade to the next. We know that the global climate is currently changing.
The last decade of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st have been the
warmest periods in the entire global instrumental temperature record, starting in the
mid-19th century.

The most discussed effect of global warming is the increase of temperatures,
although this increase will not be homogeneous through the seasons, with the winters
expected to warm up significantly more than the summers. In addition, changes in
precipitation are also expected that could lead to increase or decrease of rainfall, snowfall
and other water-related events. Finally, a change in the frequency and intensity of storm
events could be possible, although this is probably the most uncertain of the effects of
global warming.

Although the global economic downturn and recent outbreak of swine flu have slowed Mexico’s
economic recovery from its deep fall in the mid-1990s, and in many parts of the country the
government continues to grapple with eradicating violence precipitated by the presence of drug
cartels, Mexico continues to be an important market for real estate development and investment.
Average annual foreign direct investment to Mexico tripled from $3 billion in the 1980s to $12
billion during the 1990s.

The situation surrounding adoption of medical technology in the developing
world is a complex and an unsatisfactory one.
Global health has progressed over the last century from a focus on infectious
diseases to one on research and aggressive treatment of noncommunicable diseases
and improving health care quality.

Late in 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, U.S. newspapers were filled with
speculation as to whether New Orleans would continue to exist as a great and unique
American city. Levee and floodwall failure had inundated large parts of the city and resulted
in more than 1,500 deaths and catastrophic damage to property and the economy. In
2011, extreme amounts of precipitation, inadequate levees, and possible mismanagement of
reservoirs contributed to widespread flooding around Bangkok, Thailand.